Wisconsin’s state senate approved an open pit mine bill with a one vote margin yesterday: 17-16. The bill will next be taken up by the state assembly where a GOP majority will pass it. It then travels to Scott Walker’s desk for his signature and it is widely predicted to land in court to face lawsuits.

Though the legislative process is ugly, the protest process is not. Visiting tribe members and citizens filled the rotunda with drumming, beauty, song, and solidarity:

Below are the comments I shared online that resonated the most with fellow netizens:

WI Senate is still debating the WI mine bill. The routine goes like this: Amendments are put up [17 in all], the GOP tables them and all the Dems can do is offer up more amendments because they are 1 vote short of what they need. So why do it? They are educating you about the bill. They’ve let us know that the WI GOP mine bill will mandate filling in of wetlands. They’re letting us know that the bill will land in court immediately, for one reason, because the Army Corp of Engineers is being ignored and they will have great difficulty syncing federal regulations with this bill written by a mining corporation. And there is more and more and more information to share….

A farmer from Sen.Vinehout’s district compared the mine deal to myth of Jacob and Esau – Wisconsin selling its birthright for a bowl of pottage

The fact of the matter is that this legislature set the stage for the way this bill was dealt with for the next year. The company intent can be summed up in 5 words: give us what we want. They have been served well. The public has not. – Sen Jauch on the mine bill, speaking on the WI Senate flr. just now

The floor discussion concluded with a hollow statement from the mine bill’s main sponsor, Senator Tom Tiffany. He said that he was very offended that somebody during the debate said that he is not an environmentalist to which individuals in the senate gallery laughed and groaned. Seemingly offering up his environmentalist credentials, Tiffany spoke of upgrading the boat motors he uses in his tourism business near Rhinelander and of how modern environmental protections have cleaned up toxins from rivers. He repeated the name of his business so often that online commenters wondered if it was an advertising ploy. He said we can have both a clean environment and jobs because we have “advanced technology” but he didn’t offer up more information on what wonder technology can protect pristine marshlands from sulfuric acid or why it is that Wisconsin would have to operate under stripped down regulations to use that technology.

Somewhere in his statement he said there is a miner on the flag of Wisconsin but I apparently blocked it out (I suppose that was too much). I learned that from somebody later.

After the bill was passed, there were loud calls from the gallery. This tweet from @occupyphoenix describes the scene:

The yelling from the gallery was heard via Wisconsin Eye’s broadcast and more than one of my facebook friends said it felt very good to hear those voices coming through their computer speakers.

Midwest Advocates released a statement which included these words from Mike Wiggins of the Bad River tribe: ‘Although this has been a long and difficult two years, it is the equivalent of the blink of an eye for our people. We aren’t going anywhere and we have a long history of defending our way of life.’

I thank each of the Democratic Party Senators from Wisconsin, GOP Senator Dale Schultz, the citizens both online and in the Capitol for their opposition to Wisconsin’s new open pit mining bill. Special thanks also to the bloggers, the ardent environmentalists, the faceboookers and tweeters and the journalists who all did their respective jobs to the best of their abilities.

Campaign created by Eric Ming

The open pit mining bill (SB1) is a sellout to out-of-state mining
interests and must be stopped. It will have a devastating impact on
the environment, our families' health, and the state's tourism
industry.

Why is this important?

As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, I was taught at a young age the tradition of conservation.

This bill threatens to undermine that completely. The land for the
proposed mine contains rare birds, the largest undeveloped wetland in the upper Great Lakes region,
and has among the highest quality waters in Wisconsin providing a great habitat for tourism and wildlife
alike. But this proposed mining legislation is not just an enormous environmental disaster, it also has
the potential to be devastating to the health of our families. The Penokee Hills, where the first mine
would be based, provide drinking water for nearby communities and houses, and wild rice fields that
local Native tribes have harvested for centuries. With the weakened environmental standards found in
this bill, the mining companies would be allowed to release harmful substances like lead, mercury, and
arsenic into these waterways. We cannot let a bill written by out-of-state mining industries undermine
our families' health and Wisconsin's history of conservation. It has to be stopped!

I live in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, with the exception of the bone-chilling cold during January and February! One of my state’s senators sent me a letter informing me that, in short, mining here can be done safely with minimal environmental impact.

There is no such thing as “safe mining!” The two words when put together are polar opposites of each other. I like my idea better, so I emailed it off to him! You can do the same with all of your state’s elected officials, including your governor, by sending them a clear, resounding message that it is (way past) time to divest from dirty, finite energy and invest in cheaper, clean, renewable energy starting today! Our climate is screaming for help, and we can no longer let our legislators promote their hidden, greed-laden agendas!

Here is a copy of a brief letter that I just sent off to Senator Cullen:

Dear Senator Cullen:

There is no need for mining of any kind in the great state of Wisconsin where I was born and raised! Mining for finite, dirty energy sources is dangerous, unhealthy to the workers, and unhealthy to the rest of Wisconsinites, since there is always pollution runoff or overflow. This runoff or overflow is NOT properly regulated by the EPA or its WI branch!

We have a vested interest to divest from dirty energy and invest in clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro-electric and geothermal power. Our environment desperately needs this in order to avert catastrophic weather changes that are steadily increasing in numbers and intensity! For the sake of humanity and its future generations, please take mining off of Wisconsin’s energy table! We deserve better, cheaper energy alternatives, and most importantly, so do our children!

I thought you might find this entertainingly interesting at least! 😉 This is a email from me to my county’s board on

their decision to table “fracking” in my area that you covered (see links at end of message) due to me contacting various local/regional news sources to get this story covered for the sake of humans, animals and the environment! If the environment goes, which it will if they start “Sand Fracking” and/or Hydraulic Fracturing or Hydraulic “Fracking,” there will be nothing left to report! Human existence is at stake here due to the extremely damaging effects of both types of “Fracking!” The U.S. Government report attached is legitimate and virus-free. You can Google it! Enjoy the read! 🙂

I was curious as to why your board tabled the Glacier Sands Fracking Proposal when it appeared that you embarrassed yourself and the Buffalo County Board of Adjustments enough. Truth speaks volumes, however when I only have three tiny minutes to make my point, I make it very clear! It seemed obvious to me that this is not just a scam regarding Ike and Ryan Thomas, a father-son team from Granbury, Texas listed in the 1st weblink, but also a environmental disaster of catastrophic proportions just waiting to happen! Not to mention the overwhelming facts, statistics from residents who do not want fracking in their area (Town of Milton at 94%?!), and ignoring a call for a simple county vote on fracking or no fracking! What are you thinking or not thinking? You are making yourself, the board & us residents look bad by allowing seven farms who were monetarily manipulated into starting up Glacier Sands LLC by Ike and Ryan Thomas in an attempt to scheme as much money out of brain-washed local farmers who think it’s a good idea to ruin their land and environment for everyone else for a so-called payout by Ike and Ryan Thomas, known schemers, all over the need for their greed and power hungriness with no regard for any form of safety except for their employees and their pocket-books! Do something about this before you manage to piss even more people off, and I was the one who invited all of the media attending! I have enough damaging evidence in this first article for you to read to make you re-think tabling this again or voting in favor of Glacier Sands LLC; otherwise, I will stir up a major media storm & campaign starting with a referendum to remove the current Buffalo County Board of Adjustments over your negligence to protect the citizens of Buffalo County, including myself! I’m sure you will LOVE the negative media attention you will receive, and maybe even a class-action lawsuit against Ike and Ryan Thomas, Glacier Sands LLC (all seven farms) and the Buffalo County Board of Adjustments for Gross Negligence as a warm-up!

Thank you for the document. The Board of Adjustment meeting will be held Thursday, August 9, 2012 beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Alma Public School, in the gymnasium, which is about 2 miles north of Alma directly on Highway 35.

I do not know where your meeting is at. Please inform. I have attached a U.S. Govt. document (long), so you and the board can review it before the meeting. I will make sure to sign in to speak before the meeting, plus I need to know not only where it’s at but when/what time. I’m new to the area! It’s beautiful here, by the way!

Please sign in at the meeting next Thursday to speak to the Board of Adjustment during the public comment section of the meeting. In the meantime, if you have any documents you would like the Board members to receive before the meeting, please forward them to me or the Zoning Dept. and we will forward them to the Board members. Thanks.

WTF! And I Thought a B was a bad grade! After reading this you will understand why President Obama is emphasizing America’s infrastructure so much. It seems like an awful lot of jobs could be created with all of the repair and upgrades that we so desperately need!

Society of Civil Engineers gives America’s infrastructure a “D”

By Cynthia Sewell – cmsewell@idahostatesman.com

Edition Date: 01/28/09

Decades of underfunding and inattention have left the nation with an infrastructure that is poorly maintained, unable to meet current and future demands and in need of $2.2 trillion in repairs.

That’s the conclusion of American Society of Civil Engineer’s 2009 report card for America’s infrastructure, which assigns an overall grade of D to the nation.

Grades ranged from a high of C+ for solid waste to a low of D- for drinking water, inland waterways, levees, roads and wastewater.

Since ASCE’s last report card in 2005 there has been little change in the condition of the nation’s roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other public works, and the cost of improvement has increased by more than half a trillion dollars.

While there has been some improvement in energy since 2005, overall conditions have worsened in aviation, roads and transit.

A panel of 28 civil engineers evaluated each of the 15 categories on the basis of capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety and resilience.

A detailed report, which accompanies the grades released Wednesday, will be released on March 25.